I had some time to check out some of the highlights from the latest Educause Conference and specifically looked at a talk by Christine Borgman – Fostering Learning in the Networked World; The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge.
Realizing that we have a long way to go in terms of designing collaborative learning environments that genuinely engage students, she urged collaboration to happen as early as possible (e.g., the primary grades). While, of course, pedagogy needs to assume primary importance, the explosion of social media tools (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) in tandem with the near-ubiquity of cellphones certainly seems to enhance the potential for making collaboration easier.
Technorati Tags:
Educause, Christine Borgman